Did the NRA answer the written request submitted by the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Fault Line Problem Research Group on 22 May 2017? Did TEPCO do the verification test for the newly suggested emergency cooling mechanism?

The basic requirement from the investigating side is to address the serious doubts raised. This should happen before public comments are called for. In the first place we need to ask if TEPCO is even qualified or has the capacity to operate a nuclear power plant.

Firstly, TEPCO must take responsibility for the accident at Fukushima Daiichi, which it caused and it must concentrate all its energy on moving towards restoration. This is what it means to ‘take responsibility.’ The will of the people must be respected above everything else. TEPCO’s idea that it will use the profits generated from restarting Kashiwazaki-Kariwa to finance restoration in Fukushima is fundamentally mistaken.

Secondly, since 2002, when TEPCO was discovered to have been covering up problems at its nuclear power plants, in fact even from before that, TEPCO has a history of cover-up and false reporting. Since 3.11 this predisposition has not been reformed. The Niigata Prefectural Technical Committee on Safety Control of Nuclear Power Plants has consistently pursued investigations of the Fukushima accident for six and a half years, but the whole picture has still not emerged. The Committee’s inquiries have been met, from start to finish, by an extremely insincere attitude on the part of TEPCO and repeated cover-up and delayed release of information on too many occasions to list here.

This situation is well known not just by the people of Niigata, the victims of the Fukushima accident as well as the people of Japan, who live in fear that their peaceful lives will be destroyed by nuclear power plants, are also very much aware of the reality.